


No Reception in Possum Springs

by Rcw99



Series: Things To Hold On To [13]
Category: Night In The Woods (Video Game)
Genre: A perfectly ordinary day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-02
Updated: 2019-03-02
Packaged: 2019-11-07 21:10:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17968106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rcw99/pseuds/Rcw99
Summary: A day in the life of Selmers





	No Reception in Possum Springs

  


Selma Ann Forrester woke up an hour and twenty minutes before her alarm went off.

She really hated when that happened.

It didn’t happen all the time, but just often enough to become annoying.

And it was annoying because she didn’t even really need to set an alarm for anything. It was more habit than anything. She’d been out of work for a while now and didn’t have many obligations. It was a lot of _nothing_ day in and day out.

With a small groan, Selmers rolled over on her side and stretched, feeling the joints in her arms and legs pop as she did so. She opened her eyes and stared up at the ceiling, barely illuminated by the early morning light streaming through the blinds in her window. 

She’d been having a dream about…something. It was fading fast. All she could really remember was that it had been exciting. And something about a detective…?

And it was gone. 

Oh well.

Selmers yawned and sat up in bed, rubbing the sleep from her eyes with whichever hand she managed to get untangled from her blankets and idly scratched her side with the other.

Try as she might, and however much she wanted to, Selmers could never manage to fall back asleep once she woke up. That was it. If she was up, she was up. The best she could do sometimes was lie in bed and doze.

But she couldn’t do that today. Too much to do.

She yawned again and just sat there for a moment, allowing the last vestiges of sleep to clear from her head. This was the most peaceful time of day for her by far. For just a few minutes every morning, she was beholden to no one and didn’t have to think about anything.

And then she got out of bed and plodded over to her bedroom window, straightening her sleep shirt as she went. Her parents always described her as a fitful sleeper. She tossed and turned all night, twisting up her sheets and clothes and getting into all sorts of unusual positions.

Upon reaching the window, she cracked open the blinds and let the full force of the morning sun shine through. She looked out the window, at the mostly deserted street beyond. It was far too early for most people to be out and about, so there were only a few cars out on the road.

Turning away from the window, Selmers opened her bedroom door and walked down the hall to her bathroom, stifling another yawn as she went. Once inside, she relieved herself and splashed some cold water on her face, which helped her wake up completely.

She didn’t take a shower because she had taken one the night before. They were a refreshing way to end the day and despite having tried, she could never enjoy showering in the morning. That, and she didn’t really need them to help wake her up like a lot of other did.

The last thing she did before leaving the bathroom was attempt to tame the bedhead that she’d accrued overnight. Her hair stuck up every which way and if she didn’t at least plaster it down with water first thing in the morning, it would stick up all day and she’d be miserable.

Once done with that, she walked out into the kitchen to truly begin her day. It was time for breakfast. Her usual go-to was two slices of toast and a banana, but she felt like having some cereal instead. The milk was going to expire soon so she had to use it up before then. 

Grabbing the cereal and milk, and a bowl and spoon from the drying rack, she sat down with her food at the dining room table and started to eat. Within minutes, the cereal—some off-brand bran stuff—was already turning soggy, so she chewed faster, hoping to finish before the contents of the bowl became mush.

Several minutes later, just as she was finishing her breakfast, her parents came out of their room. It was still surreal, living with her parents again. When she had moved out almost seven years ago, she never thought she’d be back in her old childhood bedroom, but after _Dennis_ and rehab and everything else, there she was. Another 26-year-old millennial without a job living with her parents.

Which was fine. Passable, at least. She loved her parents, and they loved her back. Her being back wasn’t too much strain on any of them. They’d been really accepting after she’d gotten out of jail. Not too happy with her when she’d gone in, but who would be in that situation?

At the very least, she appreciated them not rubbing the fact they’d been right about Dennis in her face. They never liked him and were sure he was trouble. And, sure enough, he got her hooked on hard drugs, made her steal from the pharmacy, and cheated on her.

But she was doing better now. It’d been a year since all of that and she was feeling better than ever. Sure, it was tough finding a job, since most places in town didn’t want to hire a former drug addict who was arrested for stealing pills from the pharmacy she was interning at in the fifth year of her six-year Doctorate program, but whatever. Mae Borowski didn’t have a job either, and at least she wasn’t going through a job a week like that Danny guy.

Next month would be a full year since she’d gotten out of rehab. It was hard to believe at times. Slowly but surely, she was putting the pieces of her life back together. Maybe sometime soon she’d have a decent job. That was the dream.

In the meantime, she had her poetry. Her parents didn’t really get the appeal, but it was enough for her. It was the one good thing to come out of Doctor Hank’s sessions, so she supposed she had to thank him for that.

After sitting and chatting with her parents for a couple of minutes, she eventually excused herself to go get properly ready for the day. Back in her room, she changed out of her sleep clothes into her usual hoodie and skirt with leggings combo. Nothing too fancy. It wasn’t like she wasn’t trying to impress anyone, nor had anyone to impress.

With that done, she brushed her teeth and combed down the hair that was still sticking up on the top of her head, grabbed her backpack, and then headed out.

On her way out the door, she said a quick goodbye to her parents and ran into Mister Chazokov just as he was leaving to go to school.

“Ah, Selma!” he said with a big grin, clasping her on her back. “Good morning. How are you today?”

“Doing good so far,” she responded with an easy smile. “How about you? Have anything big planned for the kids today?”

He laughed. “No no. We just have test today. Big exam on the history of the solar system!”

“Oh yeah?” She shook her head. “Don’t remember much about that stuff. All I know is I hated that class. The teacher before you was an ass.”

“I have heard stories of him. Not a nice man by any means.”

“That’s understating it, but sure.”

He chuckled. “Well, I must be going now.” He readjusted the messenger bag he had slung over his shoulder and started down the steps outside their house. “See you again later tonight!”

Selmers waved half-heartedly. “See ya.”

She stood there on the porch for a few more minutes, watching as Mister Chazokov walked down the street. Sometimes it felt surreal to have one of her former teachers living in the same house as her, even though it had been a few years now. It definitely felt weird to call him anything but Mister Chazokov. Aleksandr just didn’t have the same ring to it.

The events that led up to him staying with her and her family were interesting, but Selmers didn’t have the time to think about that right then. She needed to get moving. She was wasting daylight.

Gripping her own canvas bag, she set off down the road in the opposite direction, towards town proper.

The streets of Possum Springs were anything but bustling, even in the morning when everyone was heading to work. There were only a handful of cars on the road and even fewer people walking about. And this was Maple Street, the main road in town. Selmers could only assume that the rest of Possum Springs was even less active.

Still, Selmers couldn’t complain. It was a brisk autumn day, her favorite time of year, and she liked to walk and be alone with her thoughts. Even if the weather had no right to be as cold as it was already this early.

For six minutes, Selmers walked down the sidewalk, simply enjoying that special kind of calmness that came with early dawn. The world was just starting to wake up and she was content to enjoy every moment of it.

The next block over, right where the townhouses started to give way to a more traditional house, Selmers turned right and cut through an empty field at the base of the hill the church sat on top of. There used to be farmland out there, but the only thing out there now was the old water tower, some power lines, and the occasional sinkhole.

Selmers stumbled upon the field a few years back and had quickly fallen in love. She often came went out there to relax and spend time where no one would bother her. In all the time she’d been going there, she’d never once seen another person—which made a little sense considering it was just an empty field.

That said, it was on the third or fourth time she had come out here that she had first ran into Lacey. Lacey was an old palomino horse that occasionally roamed through the field, grazing on the waist-high grass. 

She must’ve belonged to someone, Selmers figured—or had at one point. There weren’t any wild horses in Pennsylvania as far as she knew, but Possum Springs did have a bunch of old people with ranches at one point, so it stood to reason that Lacey must’ve come from one of them.

Now, Selmers referred to Lacey as ‘her horse,’ but Lacey was more of a free agent than anything. It had taken the good portion of a year and a whole lot of apples to even get Lacey to spend more than ten minutes with her, and even longer to get her comfortable around her. Now, after so many years, Lacey would often come over and sit with her.

Of course, that was only when Lacey was around. There were many a day when Lacey wouldn’t show up. Selmers wasn’t sure where she went when the horse wasn’t hanging around the field, but she hoped she was.

Today seemed like one of those days. Selmers kept an eye out as she walked through the field to her usual spot, but didn’t catch of glimpse of Lacey anywhere. And Lacey was pretty easy to spot, as easy as seeing a horse standing in the middle of a field.

Oh well. Maybe she’d show up tomorrow.

After a few minutes, Selmers finally made it to her spot. It was some old chimney thing, half-buried in the ground. Selmers wasn’t too sure what exactly it was, but never really bothered to find out. To her, its mystery was part of its charm.

Selmers settled down against the brick siding and took her headphones and journal out of her bag. She liked to tell herself that she used the journal of her own volition, but the truth was it was a holdover from when she attended therapy with Doctor Hank. The journaling part didn’t really help her much at the time—mostly because Dr. Hank was a hack fraud—but she found a creative outlet in poetry.

It was surprising, really. It wasn’t something she ever expected to enjoy. Back in grade school, when her Language Arts teacher would make the class write haikus or some shit, she hated every minute of it. But now, that she had complete creative freedom to structure her poems however she pleased, she found it infinitely more enjoyable.

Most of the time it was short silly things about whatever silly things she was thinking about at the time. 

She let her mind wander for a few minutes and took in the view. In the distance were the train tracks, though she didn’t think she’d ever seen a train go by the entire time she’d been coming out there. They mostly came by in the dead of night and woke everyone up when they blew their horn.

The song she was listening to was nice. It was some low-vibe indie song by some band from the northwest. She’d seen them live a few years ago when she had been in pre-med school. They had been good enough to make it onto her music streaming playlist.

It was then that inspiration struck.

Selmers quickly jotted down a few stanzas in her notebook.

  


_Sometimes_

_I like fruit snacks_

_Out by_

_The train tracks_

_A juice box_

_And headphones_

_I enter_

_The juice zone._

  


Yeah.

Yeah, that was good.

Speaking of, it was time to break out the fruit snacks she had brought. As she chowed down on those, her thoughts drifted to a more pressing matter.

The second meeting of the Possum Springs Poetry Society.

She had first seen the flyer up on the noticeboard by the entrance to the old trolley platform two months ago. She had been excited then. This was something she was really, really interested in!

So it was a little disappointing when she got to the library and the only other people there were Leah Quelcy, her old art teacher from middle school, who had set up the meetings in the first place, and some weird dude named Jones who smelled moldy all the time.

That said, that first meeting last month went over well. She had a good time in the end and was looking forward to the next meeting. She had been preparing something special for them, though she was a little nervous about sharing it, and had her doubts about being able to even finish it in time.

_‘There’s No Reception in Possum Springs’_

It was a working title, but the sentiment was the same. She was pouring a lot of her time and energy into this poem, using a lot of her issues with the general state of the world right now to write something she was truly proud of.

There wasn’t a whole lot yet, only a few stanzas, but she had a good idea of where it was going to go and where it was going to end up.

It was good.

Maybe not great, but good.

Mae would say it was great. 

To be perfectly honest, before Mae came back and Selmers started to share some of her short, silly poems with her, she had her doubts she would be able to finish it in time for the meeting. 

But having Mae appreciate her poetry really helped motivate and inspire her to finish writing this thing. She still had a bit more to go, but Selmers was way more confident than she was three weeks ago that was doing something good. 

There was something different about Mae liking her poetry compared to her old teacher and some random guy. Mae was honest. Oftentimes brutally so. So to have her really appreciate her poetry helped spurn her forward to write what she considered to be the most complete poem she had written yet.

After a lot of thinking and trying different lines, words, and phrasing, Selmers finally settled on the next few lines of the poem and wrote them down in her journal.

  


_Boy_

_billionaires._

_Money is access,_

_access to politicians_

_waiting for us to die—_

_lead in our water,_

_alcohol and painkillers._

_Replace my job with an app._

  


~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~

 

  


When she finally got back home later that afternoon, her parents still hadn’t gotten back from work. They both worked out in Brush Valley, over an hour away and frequently weren’t home until well after dusk.

But that was fine with her. She liked the time alone. It allowed her the opportunity to hunt for jobs.

She didn’t know how many applications and resumes she’d sent out over the past month, let alone since the beginning of the year. Hundreds, probably. Some were things she was actually interested in, but most were just something that would earn her some money.

It was demoralizing to be out of work for so long. There were only so many places hiring within a fifty-mile radius and, unless she missed some, none of them were willing to hire her. There were a handful that had her come in for interviews, but none that went past that stage. 

Selmers entered the house and trudged down the hall to her bedroom. It was only a few minutes past one, so Mister Chazokov wouldn’t be home until three. She had the place to herself for the time being.

Throwing her bag on her bed, she sat down unceremoniously at the small folding table in the corner of her room and opened her laptop. First thing first, she had to check her email.

She was hoping for a response from one of the companies she had applied to the past few weeks, even if it was just a rejection letter. That was better than being completely ghosted at least. 

Just last week she had interviewed at _Hobbes & Hooves_, some accounting firm over in Saltztown. It wasn’t exactly something she was excited about doing, but she had a good head for numbers, and it was something. Pharmacy experience translated well into accounting.

And sure enough, there was one new email in her mailbox. From _Hobbes & Hooves._

Selmers took a deep breath and opened the email.

  


_Dear Mrs. Forrester,_

__

__

_Thank you for applying to our job opening. After carefully reviewing your application, we have decided to pursue other candidates—_

  


Selmers stopped reading right there. “Dammit!” She slammed her fist down on her desk. That one had been her best bet. She had really been hoping for it.

Why were things always so difficult this was the fifth rejection letter this month alone. No one wanted to hire anyone who’s been to jail. It sucked. Hard. All she wanted to do was work. Was that so much to ask?

She got another email at that moment. This one was from some shoe store out by the highway and the subject line was _“We regret to inform you…”_

There wasn’t any point in even opening that one. Apparently, it was too much to ask.

Selmers groaned and leaned back in her chair.

Everything sucked.

She would be stuck living with her parents forever and there was nothing she could do about it.

All her hopes and dreams had been replaced with this crushing reality that she was doomed to live. All her expectations growing up were replaced with hopelessness. Her…

And just like that inspiration struck. She grabbed a pen and wrote down a few lines. A little rough, but they would work out just fine.

  


_Replace my dreams_

_of a house and a yard_

_with a couch_

_in the basement._

 

  


~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~

  


In the evenings, around four o’clock, she liked to go sit out on the stoop in front of her house. It had been something she and her parents used to do every day when she was little. Most of the neighbors used to come over and talk and have a good time.

Now, of course, it was just Selmers. Her parents were too busy to sit outside expect sometimes on the weekends and most of the neighbors had moved away over the years. Some people would still try and make it over sporadically through the week, but not like it used to be. The only person she ever saw constantly nowadays was the guy next door, but he mostly just kept to his own front porch.

Lately, Mae had been coming by. It was nice. It reminded her of when she was a kid. And how Mae and that friend of hers, Casey, would run up and down the street when they were kids. Even though Selmers was a little older, they always tried to rope her into playing with them. 

Selmers walked outside and shut the front door. Mister Chazokov was up on the roof again looking for constellations. At the sound of the door closing, he glanced down over the edge. 

“Hello again, Selma!” he called down to her.

“Hey to you too.”

“I suppose I cannot entice you to come join me up here? Sterling the Seer and Simone the Fighter are out tonight.”

Selmers chuckled. Every time he was up there, he always tried to get her to join him. And every time he asked, she always said no. She didn’t do heights. And even if she wanted to, she wasn’t about to haul herself up on the roof to look at some stars or whatever.

“I think I’ll pass again. Thanks though.”

He laughed. “Alright, Selma. But mark my words, one of these days I will get you up on this roof.”

“That’ll be the day.” She smirked.

“I’ll talk to you later then. Send Mae up my way if you see her. At least she appreciates the stars.”

“Will do.”

He smiled broadly and turned back around to get his telescope ready for later in the evening.

Selmers sighed and plopped down on the edge of her front porch.

She sat there for a while, watching the sun slowly set and all the people and cars driving by. 

This really was the perfect way to end the day, she thought. Something nice and relaxing. Just an hour or two away from everything. Away from worrying about jobs. Or money troubles. Or anything stressful.

Even when she did get a job, this would always remain. This would always be her time.

And then, like clockwork, she heard the sound of running footsteps in the distance. It was a particular set of footsteps she had grown used to over the past few days.

Selmers glanced to her right, and sure enough, there was Mae jogging up the street.

Mae skidded to a stop at the bottom of the stoop, and stared up at Selmers, a wide grin splitting her face. “Hey Selmers.”

“Hey Mae,” she smiled. “Wanna hear a poem?”

  


**Author's Note:**

> Something I’ve had sitting on my computer for a while. Eventually decided to finish it up as well as I could and post it.
> 
> Selmers is my favorite character.


End file.
